Making Music Improvising

I’ve decided to focus on music, song, improvisation for my MA. I like to say I’m a interdisciplinary artist because it’s true I do a lot of different art and things in general. However, I think there is value in focusing on one thing, and that one thing that interests me most at the moment is music. I’m interested in the power of song, how it takes on a life of it’s own from the moment it is created and how it is even created in the first place. I have always felt quite shy jamming and improvising with others because I do not know any instrument particularly well nor can I easily just accompany someone.

Recently I’ve been making music with non trained musicians and I’ve really enjoyed it. It’s like communicating in another language and has been very open and fluid as we don’t search for what chords each of us is playing. It brings us together and we create something new based on feeling. I think.

The photo above was taken on Saturday at our studio in new cross. Sara on percussion, Best on ukulele, Ollie on guitar and me on keyboard. I’ve also been thinking lately about my pedagogical practice. Some ways I’m thinking of articulating and moving forwards my practice is:

leading from instinct

feeling my way

the politics is the way in which I operate and have constructed my way of being around

that is my critical pedagogy, that is my stand against a world that actually ignores what people feel and actually engages in what people think or believe

my philosophy is taking the opportunity that comes along rather than setting up something formally

that’s part of the philosophy of the artist traveller who creates situations

those situations being pedagogic situations

What is that pedagogy, and how does it work?

My pedagogy offers a very open, enabling approach towards collaboration, so other people can join in because of the way that I offer that.

Making those kind of relations with people, that is my pedagogy, my pedagogical approach

my critical pedagogy, the way of being different than the mainstream, is to do with the way of being

What do I experience? Not just what they get out of it but what do I get out of it? And we as a collective get out of it?

it’s an openness and a genuine interest in the people that come and that I meet

That enjoyment is a precious thing. That’s about engagement and involvement and feeling part of it, that cooperative thing

I’m trying to map out a way of being this travelling practitioner.

I need to get to grips with song as an art form and what song does

I need to get to grips with it theoretically.

Badiou talks about truth and being able to punch through situations into a new space to create ruptures or opportunities for greater understanding, where pedagogy kind of works, calls it real learning. And that’s similar to what I’m talking about, moments for real learning, where individuals perhaps change, or people transform. People move as a result of something, it moves them, it alters them. They don’t just know more as a result of it but they are in someway different.